


A Really Good Sandwich

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Coffee Shops, Gen, Sandwiches, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28901550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: Geralt sits in a sunny spot in a coffee shop, eating a really good sandwich.
Relationships: Eskel & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Eskel & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Lambert
Comments: 49
Kudos: 289





	A Really Good Sandwich

**Author's Note:**

> This comes out of the collision of a few different things, including me complaining about not knowing what to write and Basingstoke telling me to write Geralt eating a really good sandwich in the sun + seeing some modern coffee shop AU fanart the other day and trying to figure out a coffee shop AU I would want to read (or write) about my witchers + that one time I attempted to plot out a silly Geralt/Jaskier (inevitably, Eskel/Jaskier & Eskel/Geralt/Jaskier) modern AU that turned into plotting out a really depressing modern witchers AU interacting with Jaskier's personal Romantic Comedy Field. So... this is all of those things (minus Jaskier), and also me pining a little bit for the grilled cheese with bacon I used to get at Colectivo.

Geralt stopped chewing, mouth full, and looked down at the sandwich in his hand. 

It didn't look, visually, like anything very special: another coffee shop grilled cheese and bacon sandwich, on toasted white-ish bread from some local bakery. It was his go-to order in places like this, when he was tired of whatever rations he'd packed and sick of the safely predictable--and calorie-dense--fast food options. Lunch meat could be disgusting to his heightened senses in too many ways to think about, and lettuce and tomato often weren't much better, but bread, cheese, and bacon nearly always fell within his tolerances.

This sandwich had cleared that bar and then some. It was, he thought as he resumed chewing, still studying the sandwich, a practically perfect sandwich, in the way that could happen when all the stars aligned, every minute factor falling into place with his own exact preferences. He'd likely never get a sandwich this good, even coming back to this shop and ordering the exact same thing. The bread had just the right combination of textures, and had been toasted--with both butter and mayo, he could tell, savoring the richness--to exactly the right degree of brown crispiness. The cheese and bacon were perfectly gooey and crispy, respectively, with just the right salty-savory melding of flavors and the right amount of satisfying high-protein filling in balance with the bread. 

Geralt ate slowly, savoring each bite, and for the first time in something like fifteen years, he found himself thinking, _I should tell Eskel about this. We should have this at the coffee shop._

There was no coffee shop, and even back when it was something they regularly referenced to each other, it hadn't ever been a real possibility. But back in the 90s, when coffee shops had started springing up everywhere, he and Eskel and some of the others of their generation had really appreciated the establishments. Somewhere to sit, to meet clients or informants or suppliers, to drink coffee helpfully doctored with syrups and creams and eat sandwiches or sweets, was invaluable to a witcher on the road. Back then there wasn't any free wi-fi, and they'd had to spend a lot of their time in local libraries doing research or reading and sending emails--the School of the Wolf had eagerly adopted a lot of communication technologies--but being unable to eat anything for hours at a time was surprisingly wearing. 

Geralt and Eskel had also both wandered into their share of coffee shops that served as recruiting centers for their local churches or missions; they'd compared collections of pamphlets and flyers collected in those places, whenever they met up. That, really, had been where the fantasy of their coffee shop had started: being proteges of Vesemir's, they were on the quietly reformist end of the spectrum among Wolf School witchers, looking for ways to shift their recruitment practices from the increasingly risky collection of foster children and runaways to something focused on boys--children, because accepting girls into the Wolf School was overdue by upwards of a hundred years--who were old enough to meaningfully volunteer. Younger ones were traditional, but as they'd been told time and again, the inferior modern Trials hardly ever killed anyone and also modified them little enough that they could be administered anytime up to age fifteen or so.

Aside from its possible usefulness in recruiting, the coffee shop might have been handy as an option for witchers no longer able to be out on the Path, who were still young or curious enough to want to live somewhere other than the isolated compound of Kaer Morhen. Geralt and Eskel, when they talked about it, both talked like it would be them running the place, as if they could possibly be spared from the Path for it; they'd never acknowledged what would have to happen to give them that kind of time on their hands, but they could speak easily enough of Aubry, who'd lost an eye and most of the use of one arm, or old Barmin who mostly sat by the fire and scolded, but whose hands were always busy with one bit of mending or another. The coffee shop could have been a place for them, and for anyone else who came to need such a place in the future.

Plus, it would mean there was one coffee shop in North America that _only_ served food and drinks palatable to witchers.

They'd talked idly about the possibilities for ten or so years, always with some vague idea of bringing it up to Vesemir when they went home for the winter, or testing it out on some others of their cohort, maybe running it past Aubry or another of the witchers who lived permanently at Kaer Morhen, to see if any of them would be interested in lending themselves to the project. 

And then there were the raids, and after that there was nothing to reform and no Wolf School to back such a venture. 

There had just been Geralt and Eskel, out on the road for so long they'd slipped the net by sheer accident, and Lambert, whose lifetime of anger at the Wolf School and the world had boiled over at the destruction of the one by the other--and Vesemir, who Geralt and Eskel had had to take turns visiting once a month to have stilted, carefully non-incriminating conversations through reinforced glass. Eventually, when all the investigations were over, the seized property had gone to auction, and Geralt and Eskel had managed--with Lambert's grudging assistance--to set up a shell company to buy Kaer Morhen, but that had taken all the cash they could get their hands on. With only him and Eskel really working the Path anymore, it wasn't like they'd been bringing in much. Vesemir, when he got out, had sold off some safehouses the rest of them hadn't been able to find the deeds for, so they weren't worried about money these days, but the Wolf School wasn't even a husk of what it had been. The four of them who survived were just brittle fragments, like teeth and claws left behind in the ashes. 

Geralt shook off his grim thoughts and took another bite of the sandwich. It was still really fucking good.

He pulled out his phone, took a picture of what was left--it even came out looking kind of artistic, in the warm afternoon sunlight streaming through the window. He texted it to Eskel and Lambert, along with the name of the coffeeshop. They knew where he was, so that would be enough information; they all kept careful track of each other, these days. 

He was left puzzling over what to say about it; he couldn't help noticing that the text thread above the photo hadn't been replied to in weeks, and only contained terse exchanges of information. If he'd only sent it to Eskel he wouldn't have felt like he had to say anything. They did send each other random photos from time to time, and Eskel would have understood at least enough of his meaning to go on with, but Lambert...

The phone vibrated in his hand, and a reply appeared from Eskel. 

_Looks good, I'll check it out next time I'm there._

He'd barely read it when another text came in, this time from Eskel just to Geralt.

_Should we put it on the menu at the coffee shop?_

Geralt smiled, and texted back, _Definitely. Call it the White Wolf._

Before Eskel could argue with him--which he would, because Geralt had assigned his nickname to half a dozen items over the years, none of which Eskel ever thought was the right one--a message came in from Lambert: a nose-down selfie showing his open mouth and whatever he'd been chewing. 

That, Geralt knew how to respond to, and it definitely didn't require any words. He ate the rest of his lunch in between volleying messages and pictures back and forth with his brothers, and left the coffee shop with a smile on his face. He might never get a perfect sandwich there again, but still. It would be worth coming back to.


End file.
